A BLONDE wig and a cricket bat... it wasn't the most promising start to a music career. But as Dave Wakeling, 58, tells Danny Scott, punk made anything possible

Dave Wakeling (third from left) with the rest of The Beat members in 1979 [NC]

“This is The Beat at one of our early photo shoots in 1979, and that’s me, third from left.

The whole music thing was always a bit of a surprise because I grew up thinking I was going to be a competition swimmer. As a kid I gota bronze for England and won a lot of medals locally. Music never even entered my life until one night when I was about 13.

My dad was driving me home from some race or other when he stopped off for a quick pint, leaving me in the car. I switched on the radio just for something to do, and heard The Four Tops’ Walk Away Renée followed by The Rolling Stones and Ruby Tuesday. Don’t ask me why, but that evening changed my life forever.

I didn’t have a guitar so I used to ‘practise’ with a cricket bat. I even bought a blonde wig from a shop on the high street. As soon as my parents went out, I’d be upstairs with the wig and the cricket bat, pretending I was Brian Jones from the Stones.

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When you’ve stood next to a bloke on the assembly line for 10 years and you’ve got to know his kids and his missus, you don’t even notice what colour his skin is

Forming a band became a daydream. That’s all I ever thought it would be, but then punk came along and showed me what was possible. I bought a guitar, started writing songs, and when I got together with Dave Steele and Andy Cox, we decided to call our band The Beat. We played our first show on March 28, 1979.

I can remember the date because it was the same day as the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the States. Not the most auspicious start for a young band.

Later that year we did our first show in London, and we had all these skinheads coming up to us afterwards, saying, ‘It’s great to see black and white blokes up on stage together.’ There was none of the racist attitude that people expect – they loved the whole multiracial thing.

I guess they thought we were making a political statement but it was nothing like that. Coming from the West Midlands I was used to having black mates. It was no big deal. I think it had something to do with the car industry in the area.

When you’ve stood next to a bloke on the assembly line for 10 years and you’ve got to know his kids and his missus, you don’t even notice what colour his skin is.

We got ourselves a record deal, and six months after we played our first gig, we released Tears of a Clown. By December we were in the top 10 and playing on Top of the Pops. It was all a bit surreal. I struggled to keep a straight face most of the time because I just couldn’t believe we had a hit record.”

As the US ambassador for Specialized, a project to raise money for The Teenage Cancer Trust, Dave has created an all-star 2 Tone line-up including The Specials, The Selecter and Bad Manners to record the Madness song Our house. It appears on the Specialized 3 – Mad Not Cancer album, out next month.